Teaching Resource

The tension between individual rights and a government’s need to preserve and protect national security during times of war has represented a constant theme throughout American history.

During the John Adams administration, a conflict with France resulted in the passage of the Alien and Sedition Acts, laws that violated the First Amendment by limiting people’s freedom to criticize the government and encouraged fear of foreigners living in the United States. James Madison and Thomas Jefferson famously responded with...

Teaching Resource

At the beginning of the Civil War, as the number of dead increased daily, a force of opposition to the war efforts began to intensify in the Congress and in the voices of the American people. Abraham Lincoln, in an effort to silence the Southern sympathizers, or “Copperheads,” suspended the writ of habeas corpus, a clause of the Constitution that forbids unlawful imprisonment. The suspension of this clause was first mandated only in the state of Maryland due to its proximity to the capital, but in September of 1861...